We are web nerds.

My name is Felix Chi. I run Guava. Here's why.

In 2005, in Havana, my friend Edel and I got the job of building an educational Flash CD-ROM called Mi Amiga la Tierra for Cuba's National Geography Institute. The project came with a rare privilege: access to the internet.

I couldn't sleep that night. There was one computer hooked up in a room. “ten cuidado que todo está monitoreado” I was told. Firefox was open on Yahoo.es, step 1: get an email address.

Bandwidth sucked but I was relentless, the strategy was to download everything I could and read it later. I was already commited to Flash so I studied 2advanced and the other studios pushing the web as an expressive medium. I found community, fellow ActionScript nerds sharing tips and tricks. I was hooked.

I moved to the US in late 2007. The first things I bought: a computer, internet access, and a hosting account. Not a car. Not a TV. I didn't just want to use the web — I wanted to be on it.

I started with what I knew: Flash and ActionScript. Demand was high for interactive banners and games. But then came the iPhone and Steve Jobs' infamous letter... I knew mobile computing was the future and I pivoted to web standards without looking back.

I got Zeldman's book and a Blue Beanie, learned HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I saw the rise of jQuery and the death of IE6. I remember being blown away by the Dao of Web Design. I watched Chrome become the king of browsers with their V8 Engine and Node.JS take over the dev world.

When you grow up somewhere the web is forbidden, you understand what most people take for granted. A URL is freedom. Your own domain is your own house. No one deciding who gets to see your work.

Guava exists because I believe everyone deserves a home on the internet. Not a rented room on someone else's platform. A real home — your domain, your design, your voice.

That's what I build. That's what I've always built.